It's Not Just About How I Look

It's not just about how I look.  Sure, there is pressure from my job (self imposed!) to "look the part" of a trainer.  And these increasing images on Facebook of these super lean, ripped women are not helping the image!!  Even my bikini-model friends only look like that for an hour or two!!!

When I look at myself in the mirror with love and not judgement, I feel ok.  I look like a normal person.  When the judgement occurs and I compare my body to how it was just a few weeks ago, or to other peoples' bodies I feel bad, and HUGE.

The lesson there - see myself with LOVE!!!

And then, TREAT MYSELF WITH LOVE!!!


I let my emotions rule and they do NOT rule.

It's Been A While!

I've been gone for a while but I'm still moody, and still eating haphazardly.   I'm actually less moody, thanks to some WONDERFUL drugs.  But I continue to eat based on how I feel, and feelings constantly change, even if you are normal and "healthy".

I was recently diagnosed with Ischemic Colitis that landed me in the hospital for a week.  Best and worst week of my life.  I was able to really clean out my system (not by choice) and rest my body, which it desperately needed.  I do not have PTO accumulated yet, so it was an unpaid week, and I racked up some crazy hospital bills. But I learned that my insides cannot take the beating I put them through.  Ischemic Colitis is caused by lack of blood flow to the intestines.   So I've been dehydrating myself, working out hard, and eating crap.  This has all attributed to these problems.  This has been going on for a while now... I can't remember when the pain started but probably a year or more... it's been almost two years since I thought I "pulled" my hip flexor/ psoas, which, in hindsight, was probably the beginning of these issues.

Since leaving the hospital  I have gained 15 lbs, AT LEAST, because I have been scared to eat fruits and vegetables and have been eating what I know will not make me sick.  And also I have been pushing the limit of my digestive system because I "need" that feeling of fullness to feel safe and secure.  So I eat until about an 8 on the hunger scale, instead of the full 10... falling into the security of fullness without making myself sick.

Post Copy From Scott Abel.....

Here is a portion of a Christmas poem I thought was especially timely:  

I say let go of the guilt

And stick a fork in your diet

And I’m sure you will like this

If you let yourself try it

The guilt and the worry

Will surely poison your mood

And all over what?

Some drink and some food?

There’s a time to make Merry

To be human as well

So why give this all up

For some dark diet hell?

We celebrate yearly

With food and with drink

Embrace them both fully

It’s time don’t you think?

Don’t you get tired

Of the same yearly game?

You crave and resist

And end up with shame

Forget all these experts

Who warn you of gain

They are part of the problem

And cause you more pain

They tell you, “be worried,”

Or you may end up fatter

They want to generate fear

So ignore all their chatter

You need not resist

And suffer in hiding

Get out there and share

In warm joyful tidings

There is a time and a place

And the holiday season’s not it

To think that your diet

Is something you “quit”

Raise a glass to good cheer

And fill your plate up as well

And embrace all the sentiment

From that first jingle bell

Because spiritual fitness

Is shaped in traditions

So, embrace them in full

Without these self-conscious restrictions

There can be food for the soul

And for the soul, can be food

And there’s meaning in that

And I don’t want to be rude

But there will always be time

For the battle of the bulge

But there should also be occasion

To most fully indulge

So here’s my idea

It’s not so contrary

It’s is far more important – in season

          To Eat, Drink, and be Merry! 

Overheard

Working in a gym setting for the last 5 years, I have overheard many many comments about how people (mostly women, but a surprising number of men) feel bad about their bodies.   We are our harshest critics, of course, but then there's actual dysmorphia.  

I hear skinny skinny women complain about feeling "puffy", when in reality they are dehydrated and the rest of us can only see muscle and bones on them.   I hear toned women complain about flabby thighs, butts, and (the dreaded) "back fat" when most women would give anything for their toned figure.   I hear fit older women complain about a small belly and "bat wings" ( i.e. flabby triceps) when they are actually in fantastic shape for their age and have no reason to complain when they should be thankful for their health.   

It's whats known as body dysmorphia, and the degree and intensity of it varies by person and their self esteem and self image.     The Mayo Clinic describes it:  "Body dysmorphic disorder is a type of chronic mental illness in which you can't stop thinking about a flaw in your appearance — a flaw that is either minor or imagined. But to you, your appearance seems so shameful that you don't want to be seen by anyone."

I've had it.  It comes and goes.  But I do my best to keep a positive self image and not let the negative thoughts "stick".  

This Too Shall Pass

"Bad days are normal, they are part of life. We all have them. True freedom comes when you finally realize that a bad day doesn't mean you're 'doing it wrong' or that what you're doing isn't working. We get into trouble because we respond to bad days by making drastic changes in our routines. 

Consistency and balance are the true secrets to long term success, and jumping from diet to diet in reaction to a bad day undermines that goal. 

The bad day will pass. They always do."

Bitter tastes like.....

Bitter tastes like nothing, because I REFUSE to give in to this emotion of frustration and hurt that I feel lately.  

My co worker treats me as if I was dead.  Literally, he pretends I do not exist.  Fortunately I do not have to interact with him and we have just enough space that we can be in separate rooms during the day.  

And I know this is his issue, and that it is not healthy for him, and it's setting a horrible example for his child.   And it's showing me that these are his true colors and therefore he is NOT the person I thought he was.   I even overheard him mention doing this to someone else... pretending they didn't exist!  

He's only hurting himself, and setting a poor example for his child.  This is not ok behavior. Not in this situation where we have to be in the same room for a portion of the day.   Thankfully that is only a few hours, and the rest of the day is manageable.   

I went through a phase at first where it felt like being stabbed, and I really wanted reconciliation, so I tried. And I ate to numb that pain.  But now, I refuse to eat to numb the pain and ruin my personal goals.  The pain will eventually go away.

"You can’t change how people treat you or what they say about you.  All you can do is change how you react and who you choose to be around."

All I Can Think About is Food

Different from an obsession, my brain is "stuck" on food for comfort, energy, and fuel.   It serves me in these moments...  food will comfort me, it will give me energy, or it will help  me curl up and pout and be sad and lonely like I feel. 

Today I choose to stick with my valued directions.  I choose to be a role model.  I choose other projects over just stuffing my face.   I have this blog to work on!  I have work coupons to make!  I have emails to send and answer!  So many things to keep me busy.  And some fresh air would greatly help.  These are my valued directions - keeping my priorities in check, and not giving in to the lust of food.  It is, afterall, just a lust.

Another's View

Thought I'd share this beautifully written essay on negative body image.  Some people just have a beautiful way with words, and Lynn Shattuk is one!

"If you have ever hated your body, you might recognize this voice.

It sounds like this, when I am on a run, feeling tired and a little dizzy: Keep running, it burns more calories. You’re flabby. What are we going to eat for lunch? You should just eat mostly vegetables. Remember how skinny you got when you were on that elimination diet after your son was born? Ugh, she has big boobs. Why are my boobs the first place I lose weight and the last place I gain? I really need to lose about seven pounds. My ass is giving itself whiplash.

It still pipes up at mealtime sometimes.

At the gym, it hollers.

When the voice hisses, I miss so much. I miss the crunch of leaves beneath my feet and the bare tree limbs stretching towards the sun. I miss the taste of warm, sweet coffee swirling in my mouth. One day, the voice appeared when I was weighing myself at my parents’ house, and for a moment, in humid anticipation of what the scale would say, I forgot about my infant daughter, sitting at my feet on the bathroom floor.

To look at me, you might not know I have this voice. I am not overweight, nor am I rail thin. But the disease that encompassing self-loathing, food addiction and obsession, and body and weight obsession doesn’t always show up on our bodies. It largely exists somewhere you can’t see, in our minds.

Lately I’ve been seeing a lot circulating on the internet about women and body image. From the Maria Kang “What’s Your Excuse?” controversy to Lily Myer’s stunning poetry, from Glennon Melton Doyle’s honest, lovely words toBrittney Gibbons’ excellent TED talk. From the stories and from the reactions to them, I think it’s safe to say that far, far too many of us live with this voice.

For me, the voice was born a long time ago. When I was in fourth grade and the nurse sent home an alarmed note because I’d gained nine pounds during the school year. It was handed down through generations of mothers and daughters in my family, a dark spiral of DNA. It grew when a babysitter told me not to drink too much milk because milk makes you fat. When I lost a bit of weight in fifth grade and a friend’s mom told me how great I looked. In sixth grade when I got hips but not boobs. When I learned to overeat to snuff out the swirling panic in my head. It blossomed every time I heard a woman say she needed to lose a few pounds or exercise more or not eat fat or carbs or fruit or sweets. When stupid boys made stupid comments about my body. When I saw every glossy, skinny magazine girl who seemed to blare: I am so happy because I am thin and beautiful! If you were thin and beautiful, you’d be so happy, too! 

At times, the voice was so loud that I heard almost nothing else.

I am almost 40 now. The voice is quieter, but it still lurks. I have used therapy and EMDR and twelve-step programs to fight it. My body has made two gorgeous, healthy babies and birthed and fed them, and that helps. Yoga and running usually help. Sometimes, telling the voice to shut the holy eff up helps.

I don’t let the voice speak through my mouth like it used to. No words slip out when I look in the full-length mirror and am unhappy; the thoughts just roll around in my head for a few minutes like spilled marbles before settling. We don’t have a scale at home; I got tired of it telling me how to feel.

These things help deflate the voice.

But it’s still there. It still takes up too much energy. Energy that I could use to write and love and soften.

The voice almost always distances me from other people, especially other women. It makes my heart shrivel and my thoughts turn catty. The voice slices and dices, segmenting body parts like cuts of juicy meat. The voice objectifies and minimizes. It dehumanizes.

Why is it so hard to fight this voice? To eradicate it completely?

Is it because it started when I was so young? Because every magazine or advertisement or television show I see feeds it?

I think so. But I think it’s also because the voice is fear.

It sounds like a critic, a strong, OZ-like presence, the voice of a director or a stern parent.

But when I peer underneath, it is pure fear. Vaporous, chameleon fear.

Fear that I am wrong and unworthy. Fear of being present and soaking up all the loss and light of being human. Fear of my own sheen, my capabilities, my possibilities. And maybe, maybe beneath all that, the fear believes—in a childlike way, because it was born in a child—that if I just looked a certain way, if I just weighed a certain number, I would always be loved and never sad and I would never, ever die.

We use our phones and toys, booze and cake, telveisions and computers, and our critical voices to wrestle out of the present. From being openhearted and brokenhearted to the world, to each other, to our mortality.

Part of the antidote to the voice, for me, is to remember what my body has done—loved and laughed, birthed and breastfed.

And to remember what it will do—get older.

Die.

When I remember that, I soften. I cry, which lets some of the fear seep out, pooling and flattening.

I don’t want to die. I don’t want my body to not be here. But no matter whether I can feel my flesh creasing my jeans or not, no matter how many wrinkles I do or don’t get, whether I can sense the gaze of men upon me as they walk past or not—I will die. Whether my soul lifts out of my body like a balloon rising into the sky, morphing and surviving—or not— my body will die.

When I remember this, it is impossible not to melt with gratitude. For my legs that can still walk and my fingers that can still touch my babies’ cheeks. For my eyes that can watch sunlight stride across the earth. For my crazy, anxious brain that takes it all in, making me human.

When I remember this, I want to use this body all up. This perfectly imperfect skin and heart and bones. I want to run and roll in leaves and do all the things women do in feminine hygiene commercials. Maybe more than anything, I want to be present to watch my kids become people out in the world, loving themselves and their bodies and others. I want to watch them working and wondering and becoming who they were born to be while I become who I was born to be.

When I blanket the fear with gratitude, I can see how very, very small it is. When I remember that the voice is a fearful child, I begin to learn to cradle it, to talk softly to it. To tell it, like I tell my son, that yes, we die, and it’s frightening.

But first? We get to live this fierce, wide, wrenching life. In these scarred, scared, shining bodies. These skin and stardust, temporary bodies.

If you have ever hated your body, and if you still hear this voice sometimes like I do, or all the time like I used to, this is what I hope for us:

That the voice shrinks and shrinks, until we find ourselves holding it in our palms like a husk, like a whisper. That our critic’s eyes soften and our hearts widen and we understand more and more how little this all matters: the numbers on the scale, the way the landscape of our skin curves beneath our clothing, the fleeting, narrow flash of beauty in the magazines.

That gratitude sprouts green like grass as everything blends and blurs together, until there is nothing left but love."

Borrrr-inngggg!

Wow when I eat clean there isn't as much to talk about!  It's fairly boring:  shakes, shakes and more shakes.  These little EAS low carb shakes that have about 100 calories each actually get me through until the next one.  My favorite flavor is Rich Dark Chocolate.... it's like a blast of chocolate each time! [I sound like a commercial!]  Not designed to be a meal replacement, but they do fill me up enough until the next one.  [Again, I sound like a commercial!]   Especially if I pair it with a piece of fruit, or some tomatoes, which are my new favorite snack - little grape tomatoes are fun to eat!

I'm surprising myself with how much I seem to actually care about my body and am paying attention to it. 
For example, yesterday, I was feeling disappointed with work stuff, and social stuff (i.e. lack of boyfriend), however, I still wanted my body to be strong. I listened, and added a mini three exercise workout to my day. 

Even at home, that night, still feeling disappointed about social stuff (i.e. boys - pretty much always the theme) I was aware of how my belly felt and what I really wanted... to feel healthy.   Over the past few months... ok, years...chocolate and carbs and feeling full has provided me with that satisfaction of filling that void.   

I also find that tracking my food in the online diary is helping as a reality check.  So when my mind desires food - I can ask myself am I really hungry?   And if I haven't eaten enough yet, based on the food log, I know that I probably am hungry.  If the food log is complete and full of enough food, I can ask my belly if it is really hungry or just tired or maybe what we call "mouth hunger".   Mouth hunger for me is the desire to chew.... or the desire to have a certain taste experience.   It is generally unnecessary food.   However, sometimes it helps to give into the mouth hunger so I don't go completely crazy :)  

Television Can Be More Than Just Mind Candy........

I recognize television's entertainment value, and I recognize we are not supposed to take the shows seriously, but, sometimes, characters on a television show say something that will resonate with me and open my eyes. And I see things about myself that add to my practice of self awareness...   

For instance, on the HBO series, "The Newsroom", Sloan says to Don, "...somewhere along the way, someone told you that you were a bad guy, so you’re trying to do what a good guy would do…"

And I think I do that…….  A few times along the way (this path we call life) I've been told I’m a bad girl… Sometimes by B telling me all of my shortcomings and mistakes, sometimes by other people such as previous boyfriends pointing out my flaws, and I take it to heart and begin to believe that I’m not worthy because of all these flaws.   Inside I believe these things are true.    And so I imagine what a “good” girl would do, or what I would do if I was "perfect"  [that is in quotes because there is no such thing as "perfect"] such as being less moody, eating clean all the time, etc.  But, [because I'm human] well, I will never achieve this illusive "good girl" status, or be "perfect", so feelings of failure take over.  

I think that is a lot of what leads me to eat - not just the sense of failure but the belief that I cannot be trusted with food.  It's a hopelessness.... inside I say to myself, "well I might as well just eat more then".    

So as much as television is "mind candy", it can aid in self awareness!